


Ineffability Be Damned

by phlintandsteel



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Blasphemy, Copious amounts of alcohol - Freeform, God does not make an appearance, M/M, Other, but Aziraphale makes a choice, in case that wasn't obvious, more like between them and God, not between Crowley and Aziraphale though, the questions that got Crowley kicked out of Heaven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-19 09:26:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20207461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phlintandsteel/pseuds/phlintandsteel
Summary: Sometimes there were no great revelations, just drunken kissing and hangovers that took multiple miracles to banish.And then one night Aziraphale drank himself past the point of fear or courage, so far past decorum that it wasn’t even visible in the rear view mirror, and asked Crowley something he’d never asked before, not in 6000 years of drunken conversations.“What were the questions you asked?  The ones that made you fall?”





	Ineffability Be Damned

Aziraphale was drunk. The kind of drunk that didn’t even know itself, it was so far gone. It was nights like these that the veil of propriety around him was especially thin. It was nights like these that he said things he wouldn’t dream of uttering under the light of day.

The last time he got this drunk, Aziraphale asked Crowley if he would still love him if he fell. 

Crowley made sure his answer was written across Aziraphale’s very soul, indelible, unable to be forgotten as long as even the barest essence of Aziraphale remained. 

_ Would he still love him? _

Honestly.

Crowley initially wrote it off as a gone-too-far rambling of their usual philosophical debates. Or perhaps, if he imagined there was any purpose behind it, it was like someone testing boundaries because they now felt loved enough to rebel. Where is the line? Where does the love stop? How much can I change before bringing down judgement? Does anyone care enough to keep track of me? It made Crowley sad if he thought about it too much, because it cast the Almighty in no other light but that of a neglectful parent who’d ignored Her children too long. 

Which wasn’t too far off from the truth, in his opinion, but still _ sad. _

He thought it was a one off, a moment of rawness induced by an accidental level of inebriation that no human body would have been able to withstand. That was, until Aziraphale continued to occasionally dive that deeply into his cups and continued to ask him things. Like if he was given the chance to repent and become and angel again, would he take it? If he’d been the one in charge of setting all this universe stuff up, what would he have done differently?

Sometimes Crowley asked him questions back, because it was only fair. 

Sometimes there were no great revelations, just drunken kissing and hangovers that took multiple miracles to banish.

And then one night Aziraphale drank himself past the point of fear or courage, so far past decorum that it wasn’t even visible in the rear view mirror, and asked Crowley something he’d never asked before, not in 6000 years of drunken conversations.

“What were the questions you asked? The ones that made you fall?”

It took Crowley a second to process the words, barely able to believe what he’d just been asked. Once he did, it instantly sobered him. 

“You don’t want to know that, angel, not really,” Crowley balked, but softly. 

“But I do. I, ‘ve always wondered,” Aziraphale slurred. He stared at Crowley with a drunken intensity that made it clear there was nothing else that existed in his world right now. “After everything we’ve done, everything _ I’ve _ done, I haven’t fallen... How could a _ question _be worse? Why... Why haven’t I fallen yet?...”

Crowley leaned over and kissed his angel’s forehead.

“Ask me again when you’re sober, love.”

Aziraphale pouted. 

It was a very cute pout, one that usually got him what he wanted from certain demonic entities forthwith. 

Crowley just shook his head sadly and pressed another loving kiss to Aziraphale’s temple. He knew quite intimately the struggle that the angel had been going through since the failed Armageddon, but he wasn’t about to put any swaying ideas in Aziraphale’s head when he was inebriated. Decisions like that should be made knowingly, with all your faculties intact and consequences understood.

“If you’re not going to sober up, perhaps it’s time to start sleeping it off then, yeah?” Crowley nuzzled Aziraphale’s hairline.

The Pout(TM) turned into a reluctant sigh of agreement and Aziraphale let himself be lead to bed after that. 

But in the morning, he still remembered. 

Perks of a divine constitution and all that...

“Crowley... What was it you questioned?” he asked softly over their morning tea, knowing the impertinence of it had already been breached and thus softened the blow. 

Crowley couldn’t be truly upset at the prying anyway, not when it was so earnest a question, not when it came from Aziraphale. “At first? Her benevolence. Then Her omnipotence,” he shrugged, knowing his angel wouldn’t let him leave it at that. 

“Her benevolence?...”

Crowley stopped stirring his tea and spread his arms at length beside him, as if bracing himself against the edge of the table. “Aziraphale... Are you completely, 1000% sure that you want to talk about this? The last person who asked to hear my _ questions _aloud...was the Morning Star...” Crowley admitted, feeling more hollow inside than usual for a moment. 

Aziraphale didn’t flinch though, he just nodded solemnly. “I think it speaks very badly of Her, to have given you the ability to question, then punished you for it,” Aziraphale whispered, reaching over to squeeze Crowley’s hand, “Who first prompted you to _ share _the depth of those questions isn’t really relevant.” 

Crowley felt unbidden tears begin to prick at the backs of his eyes. “I- Thank you,” he said, taking a second to regain his composure. It might have been a task doomed to failure, considering the conversation they were about to have, but it was reflex at this point, to push down the emotion that came with thinking about those questions again. 

Aziraphale was quiet, giving him the moment. 

“It’s all supposed to be about love, right? That’s what Her plan was supposed to be about, even from the beginning. ‘Love the Lord thy God’, ‘Love thy neighbor’, ‘If you love me, keep My commandments’, all of that,” Crowley said, starting right into it, “God is benevolent, so _ kind _ to give them a way to be saved from themselves, from the _sin _ She baked in... And the free will thing is the other side of it. Humans have always had it, were always meant to. Eve wouldn’t have been able to _ choose _ to eat the apple if not. So how do you reconcile a _ loving _ God to one that gives the free will to choose destruction? A destruction _ She _created?”

“Quite a few human scholars have devoted their time to that question,” Aziraphale agreed, but he didn’t give any further elaboration. He could tell that Crowley’s conflict didn’t end there, it was too superficial of a scratch at the theology they’d been immersed in, formed out of, for that to be the heart of it. 

“Exactly. The humans are so clever. Even though they don’t have all the facts, they still _ feel _the inconsistency,” Crowley agreed. “But here’s the thing,” he added, his face going sour, “They often mash up the two, love and free will, in trying to find a way to still believe. They say that, well, a love given without choice doesn’t mean anything, so that must be why the Almighty gave us free will, gave us the choice of good and evil, even though it leads to so much pain and suffering. They don’t take it the step further,” Crowley paused, as if on the precipice. 

Aziraphale had the distinct feeling that he was about to be in the presence of true _ blasphemy, _ not just the idle speculation or passive rebellion of most humans, but a true opinion of unyielding _ defiance, _ that had looked upon God’s creation and decided She was _ wrong _ to have done what She did.

“If God was truly benevolent and loving, She would accept the lesser gratification of being loved without choice, if it would spare all of us all this pain. Or, She would have just built existence up differently, so that we could have free will without Her having created ‘evil’ to be the opposite of ‘good’, without everything being a choice between two sides. She’s supposed to be all powerful and ineffable and all that, so even though _ we _ may not be able to visualize what that would look like, _ She _ should have been able to, right? If She was truly _ omnipotent? _ But She didn’t do any of those things,” Crowley turned his gaze from the table top he’d been burning a hole through with his gaze, and lifted it to the Heavens, “So She’s either omnipotent and lying about being benevolent, or She’s benevolent and lying about being omnipotent. There’s no way things can exist as they are with both being true, _ ineffability _be damned.”

“Crowley...” Aziraphale said his name at a whisper, reaching over to grasp at his arm, as if he was afraid the demon would be struck down directly for his audacity. 

“It’s ok, angel,” Crowley said, giving him a sad smile, “She’s not listening. Maybe never was...” 

Aziraphale sucked in a breath, his corporation overcome with the emotion welling up in his spirit. He began to cry silently, unable to take his eyes off Crowley. The demon got up from his seat and went around to pull Aziraphale into a tight hug. 

They clung to each other in the kitchen for a long time, long past the point of their tea growing cold.

That night, Aziraphale didn’t drink, he _ fell. _

  
  
  


* * *

If God cannot answer your questions, you are under no obligation to believe. 

Feel free to come question with me on [tumblr](phlintandsteel-ao3.tumblr.com).


End file.
